Ashis Nandy

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Ashis Nandy
PhD)
SpouseUma Nandy
Children1
RelativesPritish Nandy (brother)
Academic background
ThesisRole of a Valued Object in Personality: a Clinical Psychological Study of Money (1967)
Doctoral advisorP. H. Prabhu
Academic work
Doctoral studentsTridip Suhrud

Ashis Nandy (born 13 May 1937) is an Indian

nuclearism
, cosmopolitanism, and utopia. He has also offered alternative conceptions relating to cosmopolitanism and critical traditionalism. In addition to the above, Nandy has offered an original historical profile of India's commercial cinema as well as critiques of state and violence.

He was Senior Fellow and Former Director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) for several years. Today,[when?] he is a Senior Honorary Fellow at the institute and apart from being the Chairperson of the Committee for Cultural Choices and Global Futures, also in New Delhi.[2][3]

Nandy received the

Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2007.[4] In 2008 he appeared on the list of the Top 100 Public Intellectuals Poll of the Foreign Policy magazine, published by The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.[5]

Early life and education

Nandy was born in a

Calcutta
and subsequently became the school's first Indian vice principal. When he was 10, British India was partitioned into two sovereign countries – India and Pakistan. He witnessed the time of conflicts and atrocities that followed.

Nandy quit medical college after three years before joining Hislop College, Nagpur to study social sciences.[8] Later he took a master's degree in sociology. However, his academic interest tended increasingly towards clinical psychology and he did his PhD in psychology at Dept. of Psychology, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad.

While a professed non-believer, Nandy identifies with the

Bengali Christian community.[9]

Academic career

Nandy joined the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi, as a young faculty member. While working there, he developed his own methodology by integrating clinical psychology and sociology. Meanwhile, he was invited by a number of universities and research institutions abroad to carry out research and to give them lectures. He served as the Director of CSDS between 1992 and 1997. He also serves on the Editorial Collective of Public Culture, a reviewed journal published by Duke University Press.

Ashish Nandy in the library of the CSDS.

Nandy has coauthored a number of human rights reports and is active in movements for peace, alternative sciences and technologies, and cultural survival. He is a member of the Executive Councils of the

Wilson Center, Washington, D.C., a Charles Wallace Fellow at the University of Hull, and a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, University of Edinburgh. He held the first UNESCO Chair at the Center for European Studies, University of Trier, in 1994. In 2006 he became the National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research
.

Professor Nandy is an intellectual who identifies and explores numerous and diverse problems. He has written extensively in last two decades. His 1983 book, titled The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism, talked about the psychological problems posed at a personal level by colonialism, for both coloniser and colonised. Nandy argues that the understanding of self is intertwined with those of race, class, and religion under colonialism, and that the Gandhian movement can be understood in part as an attempt to transcend a strong tendency of educated Indians to articulate political striving for independence in European terms. Through his prolific writing and other activities supported by his belief in non-violence, Professor Nandy has offered penetrating analysis from different angles of a wide range of problems such as political disputes and racial conflicts, and has made suggestions about how human beings can exist together, and together globally, irrespective of national boundaries.

Works

Books
Year Title Publisher
1978 The New Vaisyas : Entrepreneurial Opportunity and Response in an Indian City Durham, NC: Carolina Academic
1980 At the Edge of Psychology: Essays in Politics and Culture Oxford University Press
1980 Alternative Sciences: Creativity and Authenticity in Two Indian Scientists Oxford University Press
1983 The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism Oxford University Press
1983 Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity Oxford University Press
1987 Traditions, Tyranny, and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness Oxford University Press
1989 The Tao of Cricket: On Games of Destiny and the Destiny of Games Oxford University Press
1993 Barbaric Others: A Manifesto on Western Racism Pluto Press
1994 The Illegitimacy of Nationalism: Rabindranath Tagore and the Politics of Self Oxford University Press
1994 The Blinded Eye: Five Hundred Years of Christopher Columbus Other India Press
1995 The Savage Freud and Other Essays on Possible and Retrievable Selves Oxford University Press
1995 Creating a Nationality: the Ramjanmabhumi Movement and Fear of the Self Oxford University Press
1996 The Multiverse of Democracy: Essays in Honour of Rajni Kothari Sage Publication
1999 The Secret Politics of Our Desires: Innocence, Culpability and Indian Popular Cinema --
2002 Time Warps – The Insistent Politics of Silent and Evasive Pasts. --
2006 Talking India: Ashis Nandy in conversation with Ramin Jahanbegloo Oxford University Press
2007 TIME TREKS: The Uncertain Future of Old and New Despotisms Permanent Black
2007 A Very Popular Exile Oxford University Press

|- | 2013 || "Dissenting Knowledges, Open Futures":the multiple selves & strange destinations of Ashis Nandy by Vinay Lal, second edition || Oxford University Press |} Selected articles

Selected essays

Awards

Controversies

During the Jaipur Literature Festival held in January 2013, Nandy participated in a panel where he was quoted to have made controversial statements on corruption among "lower" castes in India. It was reported that he said,

It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from OBCs and Scheduled Castes and now increasingly the Scheduled Tribes. I will give an example. One of the states with the least amount of corruption is state of West Bengal when the CPI(M) was there. And I must draw attention to the fact that in the last 100 years, nobody from OBC, SC and ST has come anywhere near to power. It is an absolutely clean state.[10]

FIR under the SC/ST Act against Ashis Nandy for his statement regarding corruption among the SC/ST and OBCs.[11] After Nandy's lawyer moved the Supreme Court to quash all the allegations against him, the Court issued a stay order on his arrest on 1 February 2013.[12] The subaltern scholar Dr. P. Satyanarayana of Vaagdevi College of Engineering in Warangal has challenged Nandy's remarks and expressed shock at the vociferous support he received for this from the Indian media and academia, asking rhetorically, "Is Prof. Nandy a holy cow?".[13][neutrality is disputed
]

Scholars say Nandy was at his satirical best when he made the comment but the sarcasm was lost on his detractors. They took this as an opportunity to attack him. But Nandy's sarcasm is well known in academic circles who were not surprised by the comment. In fact, he found support from academic quarters. Interestingly, three years later, in 2016-17, he received the KK Daomdaran Award from the Sree Narayana Mandira Samiti, Mumbai for his lifetime achievement as a scholar and intellectual, and for his contribution to the cause of the marginalised communities and castes.

Views on Narendra Modi

In 2019,

global conspiracy, in which every Muslim in the country was likely complicit. ‘Modi was a fascist
in every sense,’ Nandy said. ‘I don’t mean this as a term of abuse. It’s a diagnostic category.’”

Interviews

See also

References

  1. ^ Ashis Nandy - Laureates Fukuoka Prize
  2. ^ Ashis Nandy Emory University.
  3. ^ Ashis Nandy – Senior Honorary Fellow. Archived 4 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine. Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) website.
  4. ^ "Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize – Laureates for 2007". The Fukuoka Asian Culture Prizes. Archived from the original on 8 February 2009. Retrieved 19 November 2008.
  5. ^ "Top 100 Public Intellectuals". Foreign Policy. May 2008. Archived from the original on 5 December 2008. Retrieved 19 November 2008.
  6. ^ "25, yet no Christian". The Herald of India. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  7. Rediff
    . 12 January 1999. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  8. ^ "The Oppressed Have No Obligation to Follow the Rules of the Game". www.nakedpunch.com. Archived from the original on 19 September 2020. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
  9. ^ "But as a Christian, do you identify with your community? Yes, I do, even though I am not a believer. I have been a nonbeliever from my teens, much to the sorrow of my parents, who were devout Christians. But I am a product of the Bengali Christian family and culture. I identify with it. I don’t disown it, particularly because it is such a small community. I do not belong to the majority community, which is 82% of the country’s population but some of them still feel and behave like a minority. [Laughs]" "Ashis Nandy on being an Indian Christian, Julio Ribeiro's pain and why he opposes conversion". Scroll.in. 4 April 2015. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
  10. ^ "Most of the Corrupt From SC/STs, OBCs: Ashis Nandy". Outlook India. Outlook Publishing India Pvt. Ltd. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
  11. ^ "Rajasthan Police file FIR, summon Ashis Nandy". 29 January 2013.
  12. ^ ANI (1 February 2013). "JLF controversy: Supreme Court steps in to prevent Ashis Nandy's arrest". Daily News & Analysis. Retrieved 1 February 2013.
  13. ^ "Is Prof. Ashis Nandy a holy cow?". Roundtableindia.co.in. roundtableindia. 31 January 2013. Retrieved 2 March 2014.
  14. ^ Filkins, Dexter (27 November 2019). "Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi's India". The New Yorker. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
  15. YouTube
  16. YouTube
  17. YouTube
  18. ^ "Frontpage - MANAS". MANAS. Archived from the original on 10 February 2003.

Sources

  • Sardar, Ziauddin and Loon, Borin Van. 2001. Introducing Science. US: Totem Books (UK: Icon Books).

Further reading

External links
Columns
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ashis_Nandy&oldid=1217602397"